Civil rights during the Johnson administration : a collection from the holdings of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin,
Texas by Steven F Lawson(
Book
)
in
English
and held by
67 WorldCat member
libraries
worldwide
The presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson marked the high point of one of America's greatest reform movements--the struggle for
racial equality. After decades of filing petitions in the courts and legislatures, a strategy which had brought significant
but limited results, civil rights activists stepped up their protests by daring to confront racial discrimination through
marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and other forms of civil disobedience. Shortly after Johnson took office following John F. Kennedy's
assassination in November 1963, nonviolent demonstrations helped prick the conscience of the nation and forced the federal
government to turn its attention toward eliminating racial segregation. Inheriting from his slain predecessor a strong civil
rights bill that was meandering through Congress, Johnson in 1964 directed passage of this landmark measure cracking Jim Crow
in public accommodations and education. Over the next four years, the Johnson administration added the 1965 Voting Rights
Act and the Fair Housing Law of 1968 to its remarkable legislative achievements. Indeed, by 1969, the "Second Reconstruction"
of the South had reached its peak and had reshaped legal and political relations between the races